This invention concerns the production of dicarboxylic acids or dicarboxylic acids along with monocarboxylic acids corresponding to hydrocarbons having straight and long carbon chains and/or monocarboxylic acids having straight and long carbon chains as substrate using a microorganism.
Monocarboxylic acids having straight and long carbon chains are useful raw materials of surfactants, detergents, stabilizers, and the like. However, their use has been limited since natural fats, such as beef fat and palm oil, have been mostly employed for the preparation of the above mentioned chemicals.
Dicarboxylic acids having straight and long carbon chains are useful raw materials for the preparation of plasticizers, synthetic resins, synthetic lubricants, oils, perfumes, and the like. The establishment of a method of the manufacture of dicarboxylic acids with varied carbon numbers on an industrial scale from petroleum derived feedstocks has been desired.
Microbial production of monocarboxylic acids and dicarboxylic acids is well known. In these reported reactions, normal paraffins contained in petroleum distillate are used as substrate for corresponding mono- and di-carboxylic acids. Further, the use of natural as well as synthetic monocarboxylic acids as raw materials for microbial conversion to dicarboxylic acids has been reported: VanderLinden and Thijsse, "The Mechanisms of Microbial Oxidations of Petroleum Hydrocarbons"; Advances in Enzymology, Vol. 27, p. 469 (1965); Y. Minura, U.S. Pat. No. 3,793,153; S. Akabori, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,466.
Commercially advantageous methods have not yet been established.